Friday, November 11, 2011

Getting Noticed

Getting noticed isn't always a good thing!


Something funny happened.  Just as I posted the last two caps, I headed on over to the Haven to put them up in the Gallery there.  I hadn't been by the Haven in a while, so I just double checked any new replies to my posts.  There weren't any, but when I looked at the Trading Gallery I noticed my named bolded.

Someone had made me a cap.

I wandered in to find not only did one person make me a cap... but two people.  Both Victoria Hyde and Candy. made me a cap.  Now I love caps, but I didn't expect them as I had requested people NOT make me caps.  That way I am free to explore and create as fast as I can, instead of getting bogged down in peoples preferences.

So I went to add them to my list of 'people I owe caps to' and saw... damn it... I also owed caps to Dee and  JPL.   Now the reason I was a little upset at myself is that I just made two caps that really didn't fit these people.  I should have used this spark of inspiration to whip out at least one for Dee, and maybe even one for JPL.

When I gave it some thought, I realized I was still in a cappy mood.  Now I've made enough caps for Dee that I don't have to scour her preferences, but I double checked them anyway. I also checked out her 'pics to be capped', but didn't get any inspiration from them.

So I went a looking.  I figured I would want to make something tongue in cheek, as she had made me a funny cap last.  So I searched Google Images for 'sexy tongue in cheek'.  Surprisingly enough it came up with some good images.  One of them caught my eye as it was an obvious model shoot (and I'm not talking pron modeling.. I'm talking Paris Runway Vogue Magazine model.  I clicked through to the site and found some great images.  A couple of them whispered to me, so I was copying them, and pasting them into Photoshop.

One of these were the image of the two girls used in the second panel here.  I didn't have a great idea, but I was thinking of a friend that tried to get even with Damien, while Damien also got even with him.  But as I searched I came across the pic of the men in the first panel.  I normally don't worry about showing what the 'men' in my caps look like... but I recognized that pose, and saw that it was very similar to the pose used in the 2nd panel.

It hit me out of nowhere.  I know Dee loves music and if I remember it right, I think she has musical talent as well.  When I looked at the picture of the guys, it looked like a band poster to me.  I almost expected it to have a bar name and dates on the bottom of it.  But what if Damien wasn't satisfied when that image was taken?  What if he demanded the photographer do it over and make it guarantee results!?

The idea was born.  I fiddled with it quite a bit as I wanted the story to cover to panels.  And while I was in a cappy mood, I had also been sitting at the computer all day.  I wasn't sure how much longer the mood would last, so I didn't give the design a ton of original thought.  I went with the new box layout (which I'm getting quite fast at now), and went to town.  The images were the same size (actually a couple pixels off on height), so I lined up the text boxes and the title to match both at the same time.

I put in the text, grabbed a back ground image (its just a close up of a wall), messed with the contrast of the background image, and boom.  Done.

Is it my best?  No.  Its it even in the top three I've made for Dee?  Nope.  But I like it.  And since there was room for Dee's bandmate, I looked over at my IM software and saw greatgooglymoogly online.  I have her listed as Nick/Daphne as I will use both names depending on he type of conversation we're having.

3 comments:

  1. Aww Sweetie, the "Airplane" caption was an extreme quickie meant to lighten your mood. I hope it didn't cause too much anguish in thinking that you had to cap me back for it! JPL pretty much does everything as "freebies" as well.

    You'd think that both pictures were done to match each other. Surprised that they weren't. I liked the story, and unfortunately any band photos we had taken did NOT end like this.

    Nice to see Nick get some music love. I hear he's a great guitarist. And yes, I've been musical pretty much my whole life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. FWIW, Caitlyn, please don't feel pressured or obligated to return-cap me, especially not if it comes at the expense of your creative muse. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Dee
    It only caused a brief moment of 'aww shucks'... no real anguish even if I wrote it that way. And while I love the idea of a 'freebie' cap, I just can't accept it for myself. There will always be that nagging little part of my mind telling me to repay the kindness that was given to me.

    I believe the photos were from the same photographer, but I'm pretty sure they were taken at different times. The set with the girls had many outfit changes, and I imagine it took all day (if not more than one day).

    @Victoria
    Thanks Victoria. Like I said above, I will feel pressured to make a return. Thankfully I'm willing to share my newer designs now as I feel that they work fairly well. So in away it will help my creative muse.

    ReplyDelete